Viola Davis and Shonda Rhimes are teaming up for a pilot

Viola Davis is coming to television. The two-time Academy Award-nominated actress has signed on to star in a brand new ABC pilot from Scandal’s Shonda Rhimes. Davis will play a brilliant criminal defense professor who gets her law school students involved in a murder conspiracy that threatens to “rock their entire university and change the course of their lives.” According to TVLine, How To Get Away With Murder is a “sexy, suspense-driven legal thriller.” And since Rhimes already has experience turning on-call rooms and underground bunkers into sexy, suspenseful places, it stands to reason she can do the same with law school classrooms. Rhimes is set to executive produce alongside frequent collaborators Betsy Beers and Peter Nowalk; the latter will also write the script for the pilot. No word yet on if Davis will wear anything as fabulous as Kerry Washington’s white coats, but here’s hoping.